Freemasonry_and_hermetic

Freemasonry and the Hermetic
Tradition

R.A. Gilbert

GNOSIS #6

From: http://www.occultresearch.org/freemasonry/hermetic.htm

If, as is stated categorically by the United Grand Lodge of England[1],
Freemasonry "is not a Secret Society" and is "not
a religion or a substitute for religion," then what is it?
And why should students of the occult be concerned with the history,
symbolism and rituals of this "peculiar system of morality,
veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols," which is defined
officially as, "one of the world's oldest secular fraternal
societies . . . a society of men concerned with spiritual values.
Its members are taught its precepts by a series of ritual dramas,
which follow ancient forms and use stonemasons' customs and tools
as allegorical guides. The essential qualification for admission
and continuing membership is a belief in a Supreme Being. Membership
is open to men of any race or religion who can fulfill this essential
qualification and are of good repute"?[2] Perhaps the occultist,
who sees in freemasonry the survival of ancient, pagan mystery religions,
sees something that, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder,
for what he sees is clearly invisible both to the governing body
of the Craft and to the bulk of its members.

Freemasonry does have a traditional history (around which its rituals
are constructed) that places its origin at the time of the building
of King Solomon's Temple, but in the material world we can trace
its history from 1717 A.D. when the first Grand Lodge in the world
- the Grand Lodge of England - was founded at London. From that
time on Freemasonry has expanded, undergoing many vicissitudes along
the way - schisms, reconciliations, quarrels over jurisdiction and
quarrels over essential beliefs ­until today it is firmly established
in most countries of the world (the exceptions being countries of
the Communist bloc, and those countries that suffer under Islamic
fundamentalism).

Regular Freemasonry - which, among other things demands from its
members a belief in God, forbids the discussion of religion and
politics in its lodges, and forbids also the admission of women
to membership - is strongest in the English-speaking world, and
it is a curious paradox that England, where the Craft is most conservative,
should have produced not only the foremost masonic historians, but
also the most adventurous (and most widely read) speculative interpreters
of masonic symbolism and philosophy.

These latter have been invariably influenced by the masonic traditions
of continental Europe, where "higher" degrees and exotic
Rites have proliferated since the middle of the eighteenth century.
(At this point it would be well to emphasise that all "higher"
or "additional" degrees and grades are later inventions
than the three Craft degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft,
and Master Mason, including "the Supreme Order of the Holy
Royal Arch" - declared in 1813 by the United Grand Lodge of
England to be the oniy degrees of "pure Antient Masonry";
and further, that the governing bodies of the "higher"
degrees have no control whatsoever over the Craft degrees.)

The complex phenomenon of European Freemasonry was significantly
different from its counterpart in eighteenth century England. The
essential masonic tenets of tolerance and benevolence were overlain
from an early date with layers of metaphysical speculation, while
the simple Craft rituals were extended into elaborate ceremonies
for a multiplicity of degrees, grades and Orders, all of which involved
extravagant traditional histories and hierarchical ruling bodies
that became increasingly divorced from reality. To some extent such
Rites represented a way of escape from the political oppression
of illiberal regimes and the spiritual oppression of the Roman Catholic
Church, which had been implacably hostile to Freemasonry from the
beginning[3], but they inevitably drifted away from "pure Antient
Masonry" to become either politicised or steered into overtly
esoteric channels.

Given their nature, it is scarcely surprising that it has been
from these esoteric Rites within and around Masonry - The Elus Cohens,
the Strict Observance, the Illuminati, Cagliostro's Egyptian Masonry,
and the thousand-and-one self-styled Templar Orders and Chivalric
degrees - rather than from Craft Masonry, that occultists and esoterically
inclined freemasons alike have drawn, and continue to draw, their
inspiration for Orders of their own, and their plethora of false
notions about the Craft and its origins.

It is unfortunate that there can be no authoritative, official
refutation of these false notions, but there can be no definitive
pronouncement about the origins of Freemasonry for the simple reason
that there is no certainty as to what those origins are. It is undeniable
that masonic ritual, in its essentials, is based upon the presumed
customs and the working tools of medieval stonemasons, but there
is little a no evidence to support the popular theory of a regular
progression from operative masonry to the speculative Craft via
a hypothetical "transitional" period during the seventeenth
century, in which non-working members were gradually accepted into
masonic Iodges until they constituted a majority.

A more probable theory of origin - but still, it must be stressed,
only a theory - is that which suggests that Freemasonry arose during
the seventeenth century from the efforts of a group of enthusiasts
who sought to establish tolerance in religion and the general improvement
of society in an era in which intolerance prevailed. They protected
themselves by adopting the myth of the building of King Solomon's
Temple as an allegory of their aims and by utilising the wholly
appropriate structure of extant building guilds. An eminently sensible
theory, but for occultists wholly inadequate.

There must be, for their purposes, both a strictly esoteric content
in masonry and an ultimately Gnostic source: tolerance is too prosaic,
and the medieval building guilds unsatisfactory by virtue of their
uncomfortably orthodox profession of Christian faith. Either the
Knights Templar or the Rosicrucians, or both, offer a more satisfying
explanation of the emergence of Freemasonry in its speculative form.
That there is no shred of historical evidence linking the Templars
with Masonry, nor any certainty that the Rosicrucians as an organised
body ever existed, does not matter, since for occultists - and for
esoteric freemasons - Freemasonry exists primarily to perpetuate
the teachings of the ancient Mystery Schools, and there is thus
necessarily a definite, if hidden, connection between Freemasonry
and its supposed forerunners.

To the conclusive demonstration of such links masonic writers of
esoteric inclination have devoted their literary careers, only to
have their work rejected as unsound by more prosaic masonic scholars.
"Esoteric" masons, however, have been, and still are,
mightily impressed by the apparent scholarship of authors such as
the Rev. F. de P. Castells, who considered that he had proved beyond
doubt the link with the Rosicrucians, and maintained that "Freemasonry
originated with certain Hebrew mystics associated with the Temple
of Jerusalem, and that they are represented by the Kabbalists of
historic times." (Our Ancient Brethren the Originators of Freemasonry,
1932, p. 24)

Castells wrote during the 1920s and '30s, and although he was far
from being the first masonic "historian" on whom occultists
had drawn, he was among the most impressive, for he united his historical
studies with a critical analysis of masonic rituals and their symbolism.
And it is masonic symbolism that has proven always more irresistible
to the occultist even than masonic history.

The rituals of the Craft degrees represent the progress of the
apprentice towards the mastery of the Craft, illustrated by the
building of the Temple, and accompanied by the inculcation of moral
precepts, culminating in the symbolic reenactment of the death of
the architect Hiram Abiff, who perferred to die rather than betray
the secrets of his Order.

In the First Degree the three "Great Lights" (the Volume
of the Sacred Law, the Square and Compasses) and the three "Lesser
Lights" (the Sun, the Moon and the Master of the Lodge) of
Masonry are explained to the candidate in symbolic form, while in
each of the three degrees the appropriate "Working Tools"
are similarly explained (the gavel, plumb-rule, level, etc.). There
is also an elaborate emblematic diagram, or Tracing Board, for each
degree, the symbolism of which - variously architectrual, biblical
and numerical, - is explained in detail.

While such a wealth of symbolism has a very specific meaning within
Freemasonry, its very richness has left it vulnerable to the most
wild and extravagant interpretations on the part of occultists and
of "esoteric" masons who ought to know better. Nor is
the unreason of such interpretions lessened by the invariable insistence
of the interpreters on seeing the Third Degree as a rite of death
and resurrection - which it is not. It may suit the purposes of
the occultist to see it in this light, but it is simply and solely
a representation of the death of Hiram and his subsequent exhumation
for decent reburial.

Speculation on the meaning of masonic symbols began in the eighteenth
century, but serious attempts to relate those symbols to ancient
resurrection myths and to the mainstream of the Western Hermetic
Tradition did not begin until the Occult Revival of the late nineteenth
century. At the same time, amateur historians of occultism began
to seek esoteric origins for Freemasonry itself. When these two
paths of research merged, the results were curious indeed.

H. P. Blavatsky, who was effectively the principal architect of
the Occult Revival, had little interest in Freemasonry, but she
utilised - and believed - much of the information amassed by Kenneth
Mackenzie in his Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia (1877), and thus through
her own writing acted as a channel for its dissemination throughout
the Theosophical world and far beyond the confines of Masonry itself.
To what extent Mackenzie (who, surprisingly, did not accept that
Freemasonry had its roots in Rosicrucianism) believed his own statements
is unclear, but he and his colleagues (F.G. Irwin, John Yarker,
Dr. Woodman et al) consciously attempted to emulate the eighteenth
century proliferation of grandiose masonic degrees and esoteric
Orders ­with considerable success, for it was from this background
of exotic Rites that William Wynn Westcott gained the inspiration
for his immortal brain-child, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
That amazing creation, which came into being in 1888, owed its success
in part to the increasing familiarity with masonic symbolism (via
the works of Madame Blavatsky) on the part of both male and female
occultists. It is surprising enough that English Freemasonry should
have given rise, however indirectly, to an androgynous Order; that
it should have provided the administrative structure, the framework
of its rituals and no small part of its eclectic symbolism is even
more surprising, given that the proportion of English Freemasons
interested in and informed about occultism was (and is) minute.

Of those Freemasons who were inclined towards occultism at the
close of the last century, the majority were deeply involved in
the Theosophical Society, or at least in the teachings that it propagated;
they absorbed from it the notion of the great antiquity of Eastern
religions and the superiority of Eastern philosophy over Western
thought. From their subsequent mental confusion arose most of the
books that have propagated original and bizarre ideas about the
history and meaning of freemasonry But however reliable their "histories"
may be, and however unsound their conclusions, their influence among
fellow occultists has been so widespread and so pervasive that the
student of the Hermetic Tradition and its history cannot ignore
them if he wishes to separate fact from fantasy and to understand
how the present syncretistic structure of occultism has come about.

During his lifetime the most influential of these "alternative"
masonic historians was John Yarker, whose monumental work on the
Arcane Schools (1909) is really a prehistory of Freemasonry, which
he saw progressing from the Egyptian and Greek Mysteries via Mithraism,
Gnosticism and Alchemy, with a brief conclusion on its history in
modern times. Yarker controlled or influenced numerous quasimasonic
Rites and through these he effectively directed the thinking of
many of his esoteric contemporaries ­not least those who were
members of the Co-Masonic Order, whose activities he supported while
wisely refraining from joining.

Univeral Co-Freemasonry (which admits both men and women) was founded
in France in 1893 and spread to England in 1902 by way of the Theosophical
Society, collecting Annie Besant and her coterie en route. Once
Mrs. Besant was established, in 1907, as President of the T. S.,
her support, coupled with that of C. W. Leadbeater, led to a rapid
expansion of Co-Masonry among theosophists, taking in even those
who had previously been bitter opponents of Freemasonry[4]. The
Order was, however, susceptible to the wider teachings of Theosophy,
as Leadbeater made clear in his utterly uncritical Glimpses of Masonic
History (1926): "With the advent of Dr. Annie Besant to the
leadership of the Order in the British Empire, the direct link between
Masonry and the Great White Lodge which has ever stood behind it
(though all unknown to the majority of the Brethren) was once again
reopened" (p.328).

Other occultists saw Freemasonry as deriving from sources not quite
so far East. For Max Heindel (who was not a freemason) it was "rooted
in hoary antiquity", its very name was Egyptian (Phree messen
= Children of Light), and the progress of "Mystic Masonry"
would ultimately hasten "the Second Advent of Christ"
(Freemasonry and Catholicism, 1931, pp. 86 & 98). This was admittedly
an extreme interpretation: esoteric masons were generally more cautious
in their imaginings - although Manly Palmer Hall could claim that
"Masonry came to Northern Africa and Asia Minor from the lost
continent of Atlantis, not under its present name but rather under
the general designation Sun and Fire Worship" (The Secret Teachings
of All Ages, 1936, p. 176)[5]. He further maintained that "within
the Freemasonic Mysteries lie hidden the long-lost arcana sought
by all peoples since the genesis of human reason" (ibid p.
176), and while this is strictly a personal opinion, Hall's arguments
are presented as authoritative, and the influence of his books (which
have remained continuously in print) has been so widespread among
American occultists over the last sixty years that those who read
nothing else on Masonry have tended to treat his opinions as facts.

In England other speculative masons have been equally influential.
J.S.M. Ward saw masonic symbolism in the initiation rites of virtually
every human culture, past and present, and Freemasonry was for him
"the survivor of the ancient mysteries ­nay, we may go
further, and call it the guardian of the mysteries" (Freemasonry
and the Ancient Gods, 1926, 2nd ed., p. 341). Ward's symbolist approach
to masonic history ought to have appealed to occultists, but they
are often unaware of him, for his work has been confined almost
exclusively to masonic circles - unlike that of Dr. Westcott for
whom the reverse was true. As befitted the Supreme Magus, or head,
of the masonic Rosicrucian Society, Westcott believed firmly in
the development of Freemasonry out of Rosicrucianism, and he argued
forcefully that masonic ritual was deeply tinged with Kabbalistic
ideas. And yet for all the flaws in his scholarship Westcott appreciated
the value of historical research, and he thus rejected as unfounded
the claims of Yarker, Ward and others for a descent of Freemasonry
from Mithraism or from the Essenes (see Ars Quatuor Coronatorum,
Vols. 1 , 28, 29).

But while Westcott's purely occult works have remained popular,
his masonic writings are virtually unknown, and in attempting to
bring Freemasonry to the notice of the occult world he was less
successful than his younger and more mystical contemporaries, W.
L. Wilmshurst and A. E. Waite, both of whom wrote for a wider audience
than a purely masonic one. They presented their respective visions
of Freemasonry as a part only of a more comprehensive and continuing
spiritual tradition: and more importantly, the works of both men
are still available - reaching and influencing an infinitely greater
number of readers than either the works of Westcott or those of
their little-known critics who wrote to protest against their errors
of fact (Waite especially was prone to treating historical data
in a very cavalier manner).

And this is the paradox of the hermetic misunderstanding of Freemasonry.
The ideas of its motley crew of apologists are propagated in books
that survive when the lives of their authors (and their opponents)
are long forgotten, for there is a common thread that binds them
all together. Credulous oddities such as Heindel and Leadbeater;
earnest, if unsound, scholars like Ward and Westcott; and such luminous
mystics as Wilmshurst and Waite, all shared a passionate conviction
that Freemasonry holds a key ­indeed, the key - which will unlock
the ancient mysteries, the Secret Tradition, or whatever one chooses
to call that subtle alternative to mundane history and orthodox
thought.

In the last analysis, that is what matters. It is of little consequence
whether or not Freemasonry is descended from the mystery religions
of antiquity: the important thing is that influential figures in
the recent history of the Hermetic Tradition believed that it did;
and this belief colored their perception of Hermeticism as a whole
and determined the manner in which they gave those perceptions practical
expression. Without an appreciation of their idea of Freemasonry,
however distorted and inaccurate it may have been, we cannot fully
understand their role in the development of the Hermetic Tradition
in the modern era.

Nor is this all. We must also be aware of the true nature of Freemasonry
itself, of its relationship with esoteric systems of thought during
the period of its creation, and of the more esoteric theories of
its origin. It may be that none of these theories is correct, that
the occultists were right, after all, in assuming a vast antiquity
for the Craft; but even if it proves to have been nothing more than
a curious social club, its presence, however passive, lay behind
almost all of the esoteric Orders of the last two centuries - Orders
whose creators believed in Freemasonry as the supreme vehicle for
the transmission of a superior traditional wisdom. Unless we acknowledge
the influence of the idea of Freemasonry and attempt to understand
its nature, both as it is and as it was believed to be, our understanding
of Hermeticism will be impoverished. We shall be like the candidate
for Masonic initiation: in a State of Darkness.

R.A. Gilbert is an antiquarian bookseller in Bristol, UK. He is
the author of The Golden Dawn: Twilight of the Magicians, and A.E.
Waite: Magician of Many Parts and is currently working with John
Hamill, the librarian of the United Grand Lodge of England, on A
World History of Freemasonry.

[1] 1. The U.G.L.E. is the governing body of English Freemasonry;
the quotations are taken from a leaflet issued by their Board of
General Purposes, entitled What is Freemasonry ? Although I refer
throughout the text to English Freemasonry, the arguments hold for
the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite in the U. S. A. and for
Regular Freemasonry throughout the world.

[2] Quoted from What is Freemasonry?, as reproduced in John Hamill,
The Craft: A History of English Freemasonry, Crucible Books (1986)
p. 12.

[3] The first papal pronouncement against Freemasonry was the Encyclical,
In eminente, issued in 1738.

[4] e.g. F. D. Harrison of Bardford who became Grand Secretary
of Universal Co-Freemasonry in England, although he had left the
Horus Temple of the Golden Dawn because he disliked its masonic
ethos.

[5] This is the title by which it is commonly known. The correct
title is An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermertc, Qabalistic
and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy